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Creative Prayer: Speaking the Language of God's Heart
Jesus Calling: A 365 Day Journaling Devotional
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The Unlikely Pilgrimage Of Harold Fry
Maeve Binchy's debut novel, and unfortunately it really shows. She hasn't found her own voice at all, and I kept thinking I was reading a Rosamunde Pilcher novel instead. Not that there's anything wrong with RP, I just missed the charm of Maeve Binchy's later books.The thing I love about Maeve Binchy's books is that they're generally speaking comfort reads. There are exceptions of course, but as a rule people tend to be in a better place at the end of the book than they were at the beginning. That is not the case with this book, and that - more than anything else - made me give it just 2 stars. It's the account of ~20 years of Elizabeth and Aisling's lives, and offers no resolution or has no real end... in fact, I was pretty shocked to see it end where it did. There seemed no rhyme or reason for it. It was as if Maeve Binchy suddenly realized how many pages she'd written already, and couldn't find a proper way to end it, so she just did.It had its moments, but as a whole I wasn't terribly impressed by it.
I am once again reminded that I really don't like detective stories much. I really liked this book (as the rating shows), but it was blatantly obvious to me that I read it in spite of the mystery involved, and not because of it. Of course it didn't help that I found the mystery - and especially the resolution - ridiculously unrealistic.However, putting that aside, I loved the rest of the book - the small-town atmosphere, Kelly's introduction to the environment, the knitting shop... why is it that knitting shops such as Mimi's are so abundant in books, yet I've never encountered a single one of them? Is it an American thing... or a fictional thing? ;)Anyway, cozy mystery that would probably be spot-on for anybody who enjoys their sleuthing novels. As for me, as much as I love the knitting part of the plot, I think I'll give the rest of the series a pass.
A 4.5 star review.Little Fuzzy was recommended to me by an online friend after I asked for suggestions of "comfort books". I'd never even heard of it before, but as I managed to find it for free on both Amazon and Librivox that same day, I decided it was a sign and that I had to read it.It's a quick read - not even 6 hours - and utterly adorable. The plot is nothing out of the ordinary, but I loved the characters, and it made for very enjoyable reading indeed.
Jennifer's experience works as a good reminder that the life of an expat isn't always an easy one. And that that which is good comes at a price.Ever since she first traveled to Tuscany, Jennifer felt herself drawn to the people and the place. She knew she had found her "soul country" and was prepared to give up her safe life as a US lawyer to move to Tuscany and become a writer.So far this sounds a lot like "Under the Tuscan Sun", right? But apart from the initial premise, the two books have little else in common. Where "Under the Tuscan Sun" focuses primarily on the Tuscan country side and Italian food, the main focus of "At Least You're In Tuscany" is definitely the more immediate experiences and difficulties related to being an expat -- finding a job, making friends, becoming familiar with the language, being comfortable in a new setting. No matter how much you love visiting a place, moving there 'for good' is always a culture shock, and Jennifer manages to describe this culture shock in a very relateable fashion, without succumbing to self-pity.A fascinating book that made me realize that as much as I'd love to visit Tuscany, I don't think I could ever move there... but then I already have found my soul country elsewhere :)
A 3.5 star review.I'd read a sample of this on my Kindle, and thought it sounded interesting enough to get the entire book. It didn't quite live up to my expectations, but came pretty close - and if nothing else, it gave me a craving to take up my knitting! ;)My biggest problem with the book was that the main characters were just not very sympathetic. I never came to like either of them all that much. One was too spineless the other too much of a bully, and while they both improved during the cause of the book, it wasn't really explored thoroughly enough for my liking.... This makes it sound worse than it really was. I did mostly enjoy it, but for a real knitting treat, I'd rather read books like "The Friday Night Knitting Club", "The Sweetgum Knit Lit Society" or "Divas Don't Knit".
A 2.5 star review.Slightly disappointing... although I don't know why, as I seem to remember being disappointed by it when I read it as a teen as well, but guess I'd somehow built it up in my mind anyway.But the thing that got me is that it starts out really strong, so for most of the book I had high hopes about the outcome... but then it completely fell flat. To be fair I don't quite see how else it could have ended, but the way it was done seemed more than a little rushed.Not Judy Blume's best work.
PSA: Apparently, the Bantam edition of this is abridged - with some 4500 words having been left out from the original. The Gutenberg edition should be complete though.Again, not an "Anne"-book as such, as the focus is definitely on Rilla. Still, one can forgive LMM for that, as it's still mostly about Anne's children, and because it's such an excellent portrayal of life in rural Canada during WW1. Knowing that LMM went through much of this herself lends it a credence and authenticity I haven't found elsewhere.It's been quite awhile since I last cried that much over a book - my husband got rather concerned at times! - but it's a beautiful and, despite its sadness, hopeful book. I do wish LMM had stuck to her guns and kept the original title though. I by far prefer Rilla-My-Rilla!
Definitely one of my favourite series read this year. I feel the need to own the physical versions of the books at some stage :)It was kind of weird to be reading this one after having listened to the two previous books as audiobooks - I kept hearing things with the narrators' voices. But guess that just means they did a terrific job.After seeing that book two had been a transitional novel, I was a tad worried whether or not this final one would be able to live up to my expectations and provide a fitting closure to the story. Fortunately it managed this very nicely, although it in no way took the form I had expected - there were many curve-balls thrown at the reader along the way. The end was left kind of open, but with this kind of scenario, I can't really see how it could be anything else.I'm sad to leave the characters behind - they became unusually 'real' to me.
Probably informative for a beginner, but once you've worked with CRM for as long as I have, it has nothing new to offer.
I picked this up on a whim after seeing it on a "Top Ten Travelling Books" list somewhere. It sounded cute, so I figured "why not" - and as so often happens when I have no particular expectations, I ended up being utterly charmed by it :)The story itself is nothing special - pretty run-of-the-mill YA - but the characters are so real that I couldn't help being taken in by them. I like the way the story chances POV in each chapter, giving us insight into all four main characters that we wouldn't have had otherwise.If you enjoyed [b:Anna and the French Kiss|6936382|Anna and the French Kiss|Stephanie Perkins|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1358271931s/6936382.jpg|7168450] and [b:13 Little Blue Envelopes|17020|13 Little Blue Envelopes (Little Blue Envelope, #1)|Maureen Johnson|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1166796585s/17020.jpg|1008846], this book should be right up your aisle. A quick read too - I read it in one lazy Saturday :)
DO NOT READ THE SUMMARY OF "DEADLINE" UNLESS YOU'VE READ "FEED"!!! HUGE SPOILERS!!!... trying to make this a spoiler-free review though...Very obviously the middle book of a trilogy and therefore really cannot stand on its own. It had me totally hooked from the very beginning, and was as action-packed as I could have wished, but the story was definitely action-driven and character-driven rather than plot-driven... some major twists were thrown at us, but nothing resolved.I'm still really impressed by the world-building, and how Mira Grant so effortlessly switches between Shaun and George's voices - making both equally believable. I thought the revelations about their relationship more than a little unnecessary though... it makes sense, but I'm not sure that it was necessary for the story... but perhaps that will be revealed in the next book.
A 4.5 star review... And here I thought "Code Name Verity" packed a punch... Rose Under Fire is an extremely poignant and important book. I literally sat stunned for a couple of minutes after finishing it (be sure to read the author's afterword!). The horror of RUF is that this is all REAL! Oh sure, there never was a person like Rose Justice - the American who got mistaken for a French political prisoner and thus sent to Ravensbrück... but Ravensbrück itself is real... the war crimes committed against the "rabbits" were real. And that's what makes this book such a devastating read. Rose made the horrors of the concentration camps become real in a way few other books have managed to, because she is such a relate-able heroine, and the shock of going from discounting the rumours of medical experiments in concentration camps as "anti-German propaganda" to seeing for herself the results of those experiments is only all too believable.The novel is interspersed with Rose's poetry - some of which is too heartbreaking for words.
The prequel to "Feed" - a chilling read! And now I want to reread [b:The Hot Zone|16213|The Hot Zone|Richard Preston|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320438393s/16213.jpg|909325] by Richard Preston
Alternative ending to "Feed". I preferred the ending Mira Grant ended up using for "Feed", but I can understand the motivation of this one. It made my flesh run cold.
A 4.5 star review.This was amazing! Pretty near impossible to put down. I "read" it as an audiobook, and found myself making excuses to bike detours just to read a bit more. To label it merely a zombie-book or a dystopian novel would be doing it a disservice, because it is so much more than that. The true strength of this book is the worldbuilding, and Mira Grant's descriptions of a world post-zombie outbreak. A world where George Romero is considered a national hero, and where bloggers are the true journalists.The only reason I left out the last half star is because I wasn't too pleased with all the events near the end of the book, but there's no way I'm going to spoil that for you! The ending itself was satisfactory though, and I've immediately started on the second book.The title is pure genius, even though I'm embarrassed to admit how long time it took me to get the second meaning... I'm blaming this on not having the cover in front of me all the time.
Unfortunately a huge disappointment, and so this will be my last attempt to give the Ender Saga another chance. It read more like a philosophy essay than like a sci-fi novel, and while it did manage to get me interested at last, it wasn't until page 300-something... which is just too late.There were just too many unsympathetic people. I liked Qing-jao at first, but she grew increasingly unlike-able as the book went along, and Quara, Grego and Novinha just got on my nerves something fierce.So two stars because it did keep me entertained at times, but not enough for me to bother with more books in the series. I did like "Ender's Shadow" well enough that I might try more of the companion novels though.